Ten-day Hindu festival draws far-flung families together

Saturday

Sep 26, 2009 at 12:01 AM

By Amanda AdamsCorrespondent

When you walk into the Gainesville home of Krishnaswami and Mathura Alladi, your eyes immediately dart to the right, toward the bright display of the puja room, or prayer room, adorned with 20 frames of Hindu gods and goddesses, neon-colored flowers, burning incense and kolam, or rice flower stencils.Just beyond that, 80 vibrantly dressed kolu, or dolls, cover the south wall of their living room.Five rows of figurines stacked on top of each other with multi-colored Christmas lights weaving in between them, the kolu represent specific gods or goddesses, childhood memories and even family vacations.The Alladis have labored over this presentation of kolu for more than 20 years as they have welcomed guests into their home as part of the Dasara celebration.Dasara, also known as Navarathri, is a 10-day, nine-night Indian festival devoted to the three female goddesses of the Hindu religion.The Alladis host two separate celebrations with prayer, music and dinner during this 10-day period, from Sept. 19 through Monday. There was a smaller, North Indian-influenced service with 60 people in attendance on Tuesday, and tonight, about 90 people will attend a South Indian-influenced celebration.Traditionally, Dasara is a more female-centered event because it is a doll festival, as well as a devotional holiday.Perched in the center of the display are repeated figures of the deities Ganesh, Vishnu, Krishna and Rama. All are made from different materials: wood, clay, papier-mâché, metal.On the periphery sit international dolls, a white jade Buddha from Xian, China, a Japanese geisha with a porcelain face and a Spanish Flamenco dancer in a scarlet dress.And on the bottom of the five shelves stands a palm-sized blue elephant with green ears, an art project the couple’s younger daughter completed in elementary school.“These pieces are like our version of the meaningful ornaments people hang on Christmas trees,” Mathura Alladi said.The Dasara celebration in the Alladis’ home has become quite a social event. Because family and friends are scattered throughout the state and even the world, with eldest daughter Lalitha in Orlando and youngest daughter Amritha in Guam, this occasion has become important for family unity and social bonding.Krishnaswami’s mother flew from India this year for the occasion, leaving the family home in Chennai, India, and making a 16-hour flight to Florida.On Tuesday, the evening began with devotional music using traditional Indian instruments. Hand-sewn rugs from the Alladis’ wedding were draped on the floor for guests to sit on.Pradeep Raval, an environmental engineer, played the tabla, Indian drums with goat skin tops. Raval said he has attended the Alladis’ gatherings since 1994 and has been playing the tabla for 30 years.Seated next to him in front of two propped microphones was Shiwani Arora, a microbiologist, who played the harmonium, an accordion-like instrument that is used to accompany singing. She sang verses in Sanskrit about the saints who were portrayed in frames on the walls around her.Arora has attended the Alladis’ events since 1994 and has been playing and singing for more than 30 years, still practicing three to four times a week for 30 minutes.After the entertainment, 30 minutes of prayer and group chanting commenced. Couples approached the shrine-like kolu collection and raised a small metal plate of holy water to “give life” to the figurines before moving on to dinner.Ten covered pots lined the kitchen counter with rice pilaf, vegetable curry, rasam (a vegetable soup) and chundal, which is made from chick peas with coconut, mustard and lentils. Mathura Alladi said she woke up at 5 a.m. Tuesday to begin that evening’s dinner preparations, something she will do again this morning.But for Krishnaswami Alladi, the holiday has much more historical and personal significance.His grandfather helped draft the Indian Constitution in 1919, and Navarathri was a well-known traditional celebration in his family home, a large estate in the southeast of India.“We’re trying to bring parts of that here,” he says, “in order to teach our children about their roots.”